Fiscal Deficits and Executive Planning Horizons 
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The instructions below hould allow interested individualsthe ability to replicate all of the findings (charts, regression results) 
in the Political Science and Research Methods (PSRM) paper: Fiscal Deficits and Executive Planning Horizons. All of the prerequisit 
materials, including data files and record of commands (.do), are available open source on Harvards Dataverse.


Getting Started
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Prerequisits:
- ph_final.dta (this is the master dataset for the anaylsis and input file for fdhp_analysis.do)
- pplur.dta (this is the input data for estimating plurality shifts in swing.do and swing2.do)
- fdhp_analysis_psrm.do (this is the log of commands generating the analytical results of the paper)
- swing.do (this is the log of commands for estimating plurality swings between largest parties)
- swing2.do (this is the log of commands for estimating plurality swings between largest coalitions)

The analysis was done using Stata 12, but is compatible with other vresions of Stata and can be easily run with other statistical software.

Note that the swing and swing2 .do files (with input fil pplur.dta) are for transparency purposes in terms of how the loss likelihoods were estimated. The estimated 
loss likelihoods from these are already merged into the master dataset (ph_final.dta). In short, the contents of the paper can be generated by using only ph_final.dta and 
fdhp_analysis_psrm.do.

Analysis (replicating results)
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All of the results in the paper can be generated by running fdhp_analysis_psrm.do. This should generate the following outputs:

 - Figure 1: Aggregate and District Level Kayser-Lindstadt Loss Probabilities (saved as figure1.eps)
 - Table 1: Within Country Determinants of Central Government Balances (saved as table1.tex)
 - Table 2: Central Government Balances and Loss Likelihoods (saved as table2.tex)
 - Figure 2a/2b: Fiscal Performance and Loss Likelihoods (saved as figure2a.eps and figure2b.eps, respectively) 
 - Table 3: Dampening Effects of Fiscal Rules (saved as table3.tex)

The log file for the analysis is also available on Harvards Dataverse (PSRM).

For those who are interested in the estimation of loss likelihoods, these can be generated using swing.do for largest party loss likelihoods, and swing2.do for
coalition (executive and opposition) loss likelihoods. 

For any questions, please contact the author.

Built With
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Stata v.12

Author
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Mike Seiferling
m.seiferling@ucl.ac.uk       